Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., must disclose to federal prosecutors more than 1,600 text messages, emails and other communications related to the investigation into Donald Trump and his allies' attempts to overturn the 2020 election, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found that the majority of the messages between Perry and other members of Congress, members of the Trump administration and allies outside of the government could not be concealed from prosecutors by the representative's constitutional protections as a member of Congress, Politico reports.
Instead, Boasberg concluded all 1,659 exchanges were not protected under the Constitution's "speech or debate" clause, which disallows prosecutors and courts from looking into official Congressional business, because they were hardly connected to Perry's legislative role. An inadvertently disclosed court document obtained by Politico last month exposed key parts of the messages, including conversations with Trump's alleged co-conspirators in the bid to subvert the election, which showed Perry as a go-between for Trump and his allies. The earlier release showed that the messages should "include some very incendiary texts," tweeted former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman. The texts "may shed light on his involvement in Trump's plan to use DOJ to push the big lie," agreed former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance.
